


Drownings

by Harukami



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/F, Gen, combines multiple versions of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The leitmotif is drowning, of course, and not being saved, and it all begins with the drowning of a prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drownings

Once upon a time, a prince drowned.

He was the prince who was looked to to save all people, and especially those women who thought they might need a prince. He came to the aid of every call he heard, tirelessly, and when a girl was caught in the river and crying out for help, he went to her; that is what he did, and that is who he was.

But the river was humanity, the churning waves every request he had, every call for aid, each one a droplet making up a roaring wall of water that swept over him as he tried to help one person, because that one person was one person who wasn't all the rest. 

His sister fished him out of the water and carried him on her back to a barn to recover. She was barefoot and too slender to bear his weight but she did so regardless, because nobody else would. The stones cut her feet and her back was bent from effort but still she walked, and held him as he struggled against the water in his lungs, the cries for help in his ears which he could not answer. They came to punish him for not answering; she stepped out in his place. She was one person who wasn't all the rest, after all.

And so she, too, drowned in the wave of them.

*

Once, a girl drowned. She was six years old and her parents had died. Her aunt told her that they had gone far away, so she intended to wait until they returned to tell them everything that she had never been able to say. But she was sad, and lost, and alone, and wandered through the rain until she found a hole in the fence, and climbed through it because she was there, and found the edge, and fell. There were waters below. If she survived, she would wish to become a prince.

*

Once, a boy drowned. A girl's sister had fallen from a boat, and he had dove in to save her, but the waves carried him away, and he died instead. Strange. It had seemed so significant at the time. What was his name? How had he lived? Some years later, nobody would remember. But thoughts of that moment would come up at strange times. 

*

Once, a girl drowned a kitten. It was taking her brother's attention away from her, and though it wasn't the kitten's fault -- though it was the brother's fault -- it caught the attention from him that she wanted. When he played with it, she felt like she was just like all the rest of the people around him, insignificant in the face of real love. With everyone else he smiled and played friendly, but that cat wasn't like everything else to him -- that cat saw his genuine smiles, received genuine tenderness. The world narrowed down to him and that single innocent life, and she was on the outside of it. 

*

Once, a girl drowned. She had thought that she could save others, and of course, she could not. She was drowned in the manipulations of others, in the tidal pull of puberty, in the brutality that those who choose harm can do to those who wish to help. But there was one person she wished to save. That person wasn't herself, and so she drowned.

*

Once, a boy drowned. A girl had fallen from a boat and was calling for help. The girl he was with begged him not to go -- through some premonition that he wouldn't return -- but what could he do? He'd been drowning his entire life. He'd been drowning in misfortune and in strangers' hands and in the sleazy smiles of grown men who'd gotten what they want and there was nobody to help you. He had never bothered to cry out himself out of fear nobody would answer. What could he do but answer? She was calling out for help. Even if she survived on her own, wouldn't she know that feeling, the terrible feeling that nobody would come if you called for help? He had to go.

He drowned, and she was saved by an adult.

* 

The remains of their vehicle tore through the landscape like a metaphor through a page and they clung to the fuselage as if it were the only way further into this strange and rough world. Dust covered their naked bodies and showered around them and wind tore through their hair. Eventually, they had to stop and rest, taking shelter in the junked-out remains of cars that never went any further than this.

"There's a lake just over there," Utena called, pointing. "We can wash some of the dust off, maybe -- maybe I can catch some fish." She flexed, grinning, comfortable in her nudity and strength. 

Anthy looked up from where she was tucking the fuselage away for safety. Her bare feet scuffled across scrap metal and stones, but they seemed to do no damage to her, the rich tones of her skin only marred with dust, no bruises or cuts. "Oh, no," she said, calmly, and smiled. "Let's not get in the water. We'll manage somehow without."


End file.
